redshift
by justjoy
Summary: Jane waits a full twenty-five minutes, by the count of his car dashboard clock, before he hits dial. It goes unanswered the first time, the second. "May I come in?" he says the moment Lisbon picks up on the third try. [Or: a series of CBI-era oneshots.]
1. Chapter 1

_missing scenes to 2.03 red badge._

 _somehow i missed this episode when i was first watching the show? which is a travesty, but one i'm fixing effective now_

* * *

Jane waits a full twenty-five minutes, by the count of his car dashboard clock, before he hits dial. It goes unanswered the first time, the second.

"May I come in?" he says the moment Lisbon picks up on the third try.

"I thought I told you to go away." Her voice is impressively even, considering, but that's Lisbon for you.

"I _am_ gone. All the way across the street, even." Jane chances another look over at the window, but there's no sight of her. "So can I come back now?"

"…can I say no?"

"You already did," Jane points out, very reasonably. "Also, I'm _pretty_ sure I know what happened."

He imagines that Lisbon is rolling her eyes, or at least strongly considering it. "…fine. But only if you get some takeout from that shop round the corner, I've been starving ever since you reminded me about skipping lunch."

"Sure thing, boss," Jane answers, and checks his wallet over the beat's pause that is _definitely_ Lisbon rolling her eyes. "Don't have enough for ice cream, though, but I'm sure you have an emergency stash in the freezer?"

* * *

"It has to have been some kind of drug." Jane takes a moment to admire the symmetry of his scoop of ice cream before passing the tub back to Lisbon. "Like you said, I _am_ the best. Now, I know that was mostly in jest, but it's also true – the only way for me to have failed in retrieving the memory is if it wasn't there to be found in the first place."

"Confident as ever, aren't you," Lisbon answers dryly. (Usually she goes slow with her sweet treats, rations things out half-unconsciously; today she digs in like a shovel.) "So you think someone drugged me? Not that I'm saying it's impossible, but who could've targeted me specifical–… oh, dammit. _Carmen_."

"Carmen," echoes Jane.

"Is _that_ why he refused to sign off on me," she grumbles, before her gaze catches on him again. "Wait. I know that face. _Why_ didn't you just tell me if you'd already figured this out?"

"Eh," Jane says noncommittally. She's getting agitated again, but there's none of that edge of desperation from earlier, so he figures it's all fine. "It's more convincing when you realise it yourself. Besides, there might've been someone else that I hadn't thought of. How was I to know?"

He says it lightly, though it's anything but – he should've noticed long ago, it's what he's _for_. This one's on him, no question, and the only reason Carmen isn't already begging to confess right now is because he's deferring to Lisbon on how she wants to handle it.

…well, mostly.

Possibly Lisbon catches wind of that thought crossing his mind, though that doesn't explain the distinct mutter of _good mental health, my ass_ he catches before she speaks aloud again. "Like who?"

"New guy in the mailroom, maybe?" Jane hazards, smiling sunnily, and doesn't dodge when Lisbon smacks him on the shoulder.

He does collapse dramatically onto the couch, but he figures that it's called for, and anyway he hasn't gotten very far into how grievously Lisbon has wounded him when his handphone rings.

Cho's melodiously brisk tones come through when Jane fishes the phone out of his pocket and flips it open, still flopped down on the couch. Sitting up's overrated, anyway. "Jane. You know where Lisbon is?"

Jane raises his eyebrows at Lisbon and gets a decisive nod in return, even if she's biting her lip slightly as she does it. "She's right here, actually – hang on a sec, I'll put you on speaker – "

Lisbon rolls her eyes when he tosses her the phone, but catches it with a sure hand and jabs at the speaker button anyway. "Cho. What's up?"

He lets the conversation wash over him; the devil is in the details, yes, but Jane isn't, not this once. He trusts the team – _their_ team – with many things, up to and including Teresa Lisbon's wellbeing.

He's brought out of his thoughts by Lisbon prodding him with the hand that isn't holding the handphone out between them. "Jane has a plan. Don't you, Jane?"

"Well, I'd thought of it more as _our_ plan, actually," Jane remarks idly, but moves on before either of them can comment on it. "Anyway. You and Rigsby swing by to pick Lisbon up, I want you to arrive… hm, fifteen minutes after I do? Give me enough time to run things by Grace, let her get Carmen into position."

"You got all that?" Lisbon checks, and ends the call when Cho confirms it.

Jane basks in the ensuing silence, punctuated only by the sound of Lisbon methodically scraping the bottom of the tub.

"Now what?"

He cracks an eye open to look at her. "Dunno. You need a dry run?"

"You want me to _rehearse?_ " comes the retort, with just the right amount of incredulity. "Please. You throw temper tantrums all the time, it can't be that difficult."

"I resemble that comment," Jane murmurs in response, eyes drifting closed again.

Lisbon snorts. It's a familiar and welcome sound.

* * *

Afterwards, Jane only waits long enough to be certain that Minelli's going to send Carmen over before he heads right out of CBI and back to Lisbon's place.

Cho had already sworn up and down to the team that he'd contact them if anything went south – Rigsby and Van Pelt first, then Jane, because armed backup was probably what they'd need in that case. That was before Jane had made him promise, in private, to contact _him_ first if it looked like Lisbon wasn't going to be able to handle it.

He'd expected Cho to question that, ask if he really thought Lisbon couldn't handle this, but instead Cho had just looked carefully at him before nodding.

Still, he can't rid himself of the last shreds of niggling worry until he's parked the team's van further down the street (they couldn't risk Carmen spotting his car near here) and knocked on the door, to be greeted by the sight of Lisbon in a too-short dress.

She steps aside, waving him in. "How did I do?"

Jane looks around, takes in the disarray, the spread of pills and alcohol on the table. "Quite the Oscar-worthy performance, I'd say. Ever consider a change in career, Lisbon?"

"Shut up. How'd it go with Minelli?"

"As expected." He nudges the table a bit further out of alignment, then steps back to consider the effect. "He remembered about your off-duty weapon, by the way."

"Of course he would. And now we just wait, I guess."

Jane hums in agreement. "Shouldn't be long now. Want me to go swap with Cho now?"

No reply comes, and when he glances over she's regarding him with genuine puzzlement. "What for?"

"I'd have figured that you'd want someone else around instead of me, in case Carmen tries anything." Jane shrugs. "I mean, he _has_ killed at least one man. That we know of."

"Don't be ridiculous, I'll have the Glock in my hand the entire time. He won't even get a chance." Lisbon crosses her arms, huffs. "Look, if this is about the – the whole bit where I said that I don't want you inside my head, I didn't really mean that."

Jane gives her a look.

"Okay, fine, I did. But only a little. And I think we can agree it's a bit late for that, anyway."

"Probably." Jane gestures at iPod in her hand. "So, Spice Girls?"

"One of these days you're going to tell me just _how_ you knew about that," Lisbon mutters darkly – but she still hands him one of the earplugs dangling around her neck, so that's fine.

They're fine.


	2. Chapter 2

_A thousand thanks to everyone for your lovely reviews! This show has long been near and dear to me, so it means a lot to know that people are enjoying these fics._

 _On a side note, I am posting these oneshots in either one of two fics, divided by CBI vs FBI era – "redshift" and "blueshift", for reasons of (a) organisation, (b) my utter inability to title fics, and (c) my equal failure at not being a science nerd ever._

 _Both fics are marked complete since they're essentially collections of standalone works, but feel free to subscribe to one or both fics for more fic if and when it happens! (I make no promises though, grad school and all.)_

 _(in this instalment: the fact it will_ never _cease being hilarious to me that of all people they picked these two to be the team's shakespeare-referencing bookworms)_

* * *

"Good reading, Cho?"

Cho flips the page. "You know how we're still trying to figure out where the victim went between the library and the murder scene? This was the only book he checked out, I figure it might tell us something. Worth a shot."

"Mm," says Jane in response. Or maybe he's just trying to commune with the couch. Hard to tell with him, sometimes.

It's blessedly quiet in the office, the way it only ever is on early mornings. (Not so much for late nights – crime doesn't sleep but law enforcement is just sleep-deprived, plain and simple.)

Cho flips another page.

"Must be quite the interesting tale, if you couldn't put it down after spotting in – the store's bargain bin? Ah, no, the thrift shop near your place. Right, of course."

And of _course_ Jane knows how fast he usually reads. Cho's not entirely sure Rigsby would notice, if he never turned one page during an entire stakeout.

"Good taste in books didn't stop him from getting murdered," he points out.

"A shame," Jane agrees. "Care to share?"

"You want to borrow it after I'm done? Sure, I'll leave it on your desk."

Jane flails one hand in a dismissive wave. "Eh. Too inefficient. How 'bout–" followed by another wave that Cho eventually gathers is somehow supposed to mime him moving to the couch.

Jane lies down again after he's moved, propped up slightly against him to see the book better. "There. Quite comfortable, isn't it?"

Cho's fairly certain it's not healthy, for someone to sound so attached to a piece of office furniture. "So's my desk chair."

"More sunlight, too," Jane adds, in one of his many displays of resemblance to the cats one of his less-favourite aunts had kept when he was a kid.

Cho gives up, and flips the page.

Jane settles after that, save the occasional hum of agreement when Cho pauses before turning the page, and a mutter of _Rigsby_ when Cho's phone pings with a new text (which, true enough, does turn out to be Rigsby asking him to tell Lisbon that he's stuck in traffic and will be late – not for the first time he's glad for his habit of coming in early).

Cho's a fast reader, always has been, even back when he'd been pretending not to be. Especially so right now that he doesn't have to keep half his attention out the window like on stakeouts.

It doesn't surprise him that Jane reads just as quickly, too; Cho has heard more than one person assume that the books stacked haphazardly about Jane's desk are just for show, but either they haven't actually paid any attention to the stuff Jane says or they haven't got two brain cells to rub together.

Or both. Cho won't rule that out.

The ridiculously detailed memory is one thing, but Jane _has_ to be a voracious reader to know half the amount of stuff that he does, and that doesn't happen by being a slow reader. (As if the speed at which he absorbs new casefiles isn't evidence enough of that already, even if most of that haste _is_ usually Jane's own damned fault for sleeping through Lisbon's briefings.)

Anyway. _Peaceful_ isn't really an adjective one would apply to Jane, any more than to a force of nature, but in this case it might even apply.

Between the two of them – okay, and the fact that the book _is_ rather interesting, and the part where he might've stayed up a bit too late last night just to read _one_ more chapter – Cho finishes the book almost faster than he'd expected.

He glances at the sequel titles listed on the last page, then down at Jane. "So, you–"

– _still want to read the first half?_ goes unspoken.

Cho frowns. Shifts his leg a quarter inch to the right.

No response, except for a burst of pins and needles down to his foot.

 _Ah_ , thinks Kimball Cho, at no one and nothing in particular.

(Which is when Van Pelt arrives, of course, harried and hurried. She doesn't get much further than "Hey, Cho, sorry I'm l–" before Cho reflexively waves at her to pipe down.

"Sorry!" she mouths half-silently, all the while Cho thinks _dammit, I'm turning into Lisbon, aren't I._ )

* * *

Lisbon's busy checking something on her handphone as she strides into the bullpen, which is why she doesn't notice. "Cho and Rigsby, I want you to canvass the area again, see if there's anyone else we missed; Van Pelt, the library just sent the rest of their loan records over, see if there's anything–"

"Um," Van Pelt interrupts, very hesitantly. "Boss?"

"What?" Lisbon snaps her phone closed, follows Van Pelt's gaze over to the couch. "Oh. He actually asleep?"

"Yeah," Cho says, in lieu of clarifying that he might only be ninety-eight percent sure of that but his leg is _definitely_ asleep. "Sorry."

Lisbon looks briefly conflicted. It's ridiculous; she'd never have any trouble yelling at _their_ asses for sleeping on the job unless they were deathly ill or something.

Though Van Pelt would probably call it adorable if she hadn't been busy saying, "I can trade with Cho, go back to the scene with Rigsby?"

Lisbon pinches the bridge of her nose like there's even any question about the decision she's going to make. "Fine. Cho, make sure you know how to do whatever needs doing, let me know when Jane feels like joining us again. The rest of you, get moving."

Rigsby nods, already reaching over to grab the van keys off Cho's desk as Lisbon turns to leave; Van Pelt's gaze flickers around before she settles on moving the wooden chair from Jane's desk over and setting a laptop down on the seat. "You know how to use the database, right?"

"Yeah, no problem," he answers as he logs in, brings up the necessary search windows – Van Pelt might be their expert now, but they'd still needed to run these checks before she came along. And Rigsby had practically been a paragon of patience next to Hannigan, so that'd just boiled down to Cho most of the time anyway.

"I've still got some searches running from yesterday, just text me if anything pops. Oh – here's the charging cable, in case you need it."

Cho's absolutely certain Jane won't stay asleep that long, insomniac that he is, but he takes the power adapter anyway. Van Pelt's thorough like that; it's a trait he can appreciate.

(Lisbon returns moments later with both a mug of coffee and Jane's teacup, still trailing steam, which means that she agrees with him. Jane doesn't forget about his tea often; Cho doesn't need to witness his heartfelt disappointment at cold tea often to remember it anyway.

He nods. "Thanks, boss. I'll let you know when we head over."

"Sure, no rush or anything. Just a murder," Lisbon says with a roll of her eyes.

"No rush," agrees Cho, as Jane sleeps on beside them.)


End file.
